Pass and road status
What opens when, why the published dates keep being wrong, and the light-traffic-then-full pattern nobody bothers to explain.
This is the page we most want to be the best one on the internet, because what you'll otherwise find is a dozen tour operators quoting last year's dates back at you as though they were this year's.
Nothing here is a live feed. Every figure below carries the date we checked it, and the table records when each one is next due for review. Confirm locally before you travel. Conditions move faster than any published page can, this one included.
The pattern nobody explains: light traffic, then full
Passes here don't simply open. They open to light traffic first, meaning small vehicles, often one-way, sometimes daylight only. Full opening comes some weeks after that. In 2025 the gap on Babusar was roughly two weeks.
Both dates get reported as "the pass is open". So if you book a jeep transfer on the first one, you may find yourself turned back at a barrier with a day gone. When someone tells you a pass is open, the question to ask straight back is open to what.
Babusar
The short way between Naran and Gilgit-Baltistan, and the single thing that swings northern journey times most. Shut, and the route reverts to the full KKH via Besham: hours longer, and through the advisory stretch.
Khunjerab
Two questions here, and they get two different answers. Whether the road up to the pass is driveable is one. Whether the border crossing into China is operating is the other, and the border keeps its own published calendar and closes for winter no matter how good the road happens to be.
Deosai
Between Skardu and Astore, and the hardest of these four to pin down, because no authority publishes an opening date for it at all. Which is exactly why this record says so instead of inventing one.
Shandur
The summer-only link between Gilgit and Chitral. Unsealed, high, 4x4-only. During the polo festival in July, traffic and beds along the whole route change character for that week, so plan around it or plan for it.